


Like Real People Do

by Absolutefandomtrash



Series: Hozier songfics [1]
Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), Like Real People Do - Hozier (Song)
Genre: Eldritch, Eldritch beings, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Magic, Songfic, and the descriptions of the slow recovery process, because I have major feelings every time I listen to like real people do, but honestly the most graphic things are the fact that someone was buried alive, eldritch magic, it's a hozier song what do you expect, magic happens, medically inaccurate healing process but there's magic so who cares?, spooky environmental stuff, sue me, they make out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 09:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16851460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Absolutefandomtrash/pseuds/Absolutefandomtrash
Summary: A songfic based on Hozier's song "Like Real People Do" where a woman uncovers a man buried alive in her backyard. They both learn about each other, especially their more-than-human natures





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I am Hozier trash and this is the product of it. There will be more fics in this series, all of them some sort of weird wish fulfillment for me to live in a fairy tale

Dark. It was dark. He could remember that.

Was it raining? He couldn't remember if it was. He was wet, everyone was, but he couldn't remember if it was because or rain or something else. Had they gone through the river? He couldn't remember anymore. It had been a long time.

It was dark when he was put in, and now it was dark all the time. And cold. He always though that being underground would be warm, but it wasn't. It was cold and wet and he didn't like it.

At least, for the first few- he didn't even know.

Time had become different. He couldn't feel it like he used to be able to. He had no idea how long he had been buried, but it was long enough for whatever they had given him to wear off. And long enough for him to not remember important details.

He heard footsteps.

That in and of itself didn't mean anything, since people walked over him constantly and didn't pay him any mind. He was too deep under to draw any attention. No one could find him.

Unless, of course, they had a shovel and started to dig right above where he was lying.

He waited, holding his breath as the noises of the shovel got louder.

Then he saw moonlight and heard a soft gasp.


	2. Alana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young woman finds something suspicious while digging in her back yard.

~I had a thought dear, however scary, about that night, the bugs and the dirt.~

The redhead gasped at the sight of a right eye and dropped her shovel. That was something she didn't expect.

She quickly grabbed it again and kept digging. They eye blinked a few times then squinted in the moonlight. She slowly uncovered another eye.

Then a face.

Then a pair of shoulders.

Then arms.

Then a torso.

Then a whole man, blinking and wheezing.

~Why were you digging? What did you bury before those hands pulled me from the earth?~

She tossed the shovel to the side and knelt down in front of the stranger. He stared at her and coughed, a few chunks of dirt and spit and at least one beetle coming out. She quickly pulled him out, lying him on his side as he hacked and wheezed and coughed up more dirt. She pat his back to help while wondering who the fuck this guy was and how the hell he got himself buried alive.

Once he had finished, he weakly wiped his chin and stared at her, hoarsely whispering something that could be mistaken as gibberish, but something she recognized as a different language. It was nice, musical even, but she shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I can't understand you."

~I will not ask you where you came from.~

He frowned and tried to say something else, but that was interrupted by more coughing. Poor soul had definitely been down there a long time. When he had stopped, he just weakly shook his head. She nodded and stood up, offering her hand. He took it, and they spent a good few minutes trying to get him up on his feet. Eventually, he got there and put his hands on her shoulders to support himself.

~I will not ask, and neither should you.~

They stared at each other for a few minutes until she softly said, "I'm Alana. It's nice to meet you." He nodded and moved one of his hands to her face. She leaned back but stopped as he ran his rough fingers over it. She felt... something running just underneath his skin and leaving a small impression wherever he touched her. Magic, she realized. He was trying to communicate something to her without a voice. Weak magic, of course, but magic. He made a small noise of frustration and moved his fingers to her lips, most likely to make it more clear.

~Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips.~

"Here." She took his fingers and softly kissed them. That helped, since two faint words appeared in her mind:

THANK YOU

"You're welcome. Come on, it'll be better inside." He nodded and allowed himself to be led to her small living room, where he promptly collapsed on her couch and fell asleep. She laughed and threw a blanket over him. Then she noticed a faint glow under the surface of his skin. Curiously, she took two of his fingers and kissed them again.

NOW I WANT TO KISS HER EVEN MORE

"Well," she whispered with a small smile, "you can ask when you wake up."

~We should just kiss like real people do.~


	3. Great Old One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovering takes time, even for those with special powers.

Alana settled into a sort of strange routine with the stranger. He had started to occupy the guest room and slept constantly. On his side, wether that was how he went to sleep or how she positioned him. She wasn't about to have him choke on his own vomit or anything.

Every day she'd get him to drink a substitute breakfast, lunch, and dinner to give him strength. Then she would go about her daily business while checking in on him. If he was awake, they would communicate either by the "kiss on the fingers" method or with a little notepad and pen she supplied once his hands grew strong enough.

Then at night, they really got to work.

He always was more active at night, could move more, could even speak a few words as the weeks went on. So they worked on his rehabilitation mostly then, under the light of the moon and even outside as the weeks went by. She learned the best path to recovery he had, and he learned the environment. A strange thing for her, but he seemed happiest when discovering something new her small plot of real estate had in it. Every time he acted like he had found hidden treasure, and she didn't need to touch him or hear him to know how excited that made him.

His magic flourished, too.

Something about being outside made it stronger, more present that it did inside. That paired with moonlight caused her to see him as he probably was before everything: powerful and not at all human like she originally thought. He had appeared to be a human with magic, but now...

Now he obviously was something that looked human and was magic.

What confirmed that for her was when they went outside under the full moon, and immediately a clump of fresh, cool grass sprung up under his bare feet. He didn't seem to notice and simply walked to her garden, touching each of her plants growing there. They reached towards him while he walked, and he seemed to get something form him. He stood straighter the more he wandered until he gained at least two heads over her. She just stared after him as the moonlight illuminated his skin and highlighted the faint glow his magic presented itself as. He looked back at her with a smile, which only got bigger at her confused wonder. He walked towards her with that same smile until they were face to face. Almost everything about him had changed, from his skin to his hair to his eyes. It honestly was mesmerizing, and she couldn't take her eyes off of him.

"I think I'm fully recovered now," he gently rasped. His voice still needed to recover, but even with its disused quality she could hear some kind of musical intonations in it. Beautiful. She simply nodded, and he laughed.

"Not what you expected someone recovered to look like?" She shook her head. "I never expected you to look like you did, either."

Alana blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?" He laughed, musical like his words, and walked closer to her.

"You're not what you make yourself appear to be, true?" She swallowed.

"Am I that bad?"

"No. I just know what to look for. You did fool me, at first."

~I knew that look, dear: eyes always seeking. It was there in someone that dug long ago.~

"What do you look for?"

"Nothing. It's what I don't look for." Riddles. Riddles and half-truths and questions. She frowned.

"Are you a member of the Fair Folk?" He smiled- much too challenging and wide with too sharp teeth to ever be human.

"What gave it away?"

"...There's too much to list. Your human qualities are quite small."

"Ah, and that's what I was looking for in you."

"Human?"

"Yes. But from the moment you pulled me out, I knew you weren't. No human is that calm and curious at finding a perfectly preserved man in their back yard."

~So I will not ask you why you were creeping.~

"Why were you even there?"

"Why were you even digging?" She frowned, and he laughed again.

~In some sad way, I already know.~

"What is your name? I gave you a name for me, do you have one?" He matched her from and walked closer to her.

"That is not something I am willing to give."

"I saved you and nursed you back to health. You owe me a favor."

"I owe you more than a favor. I owe you a life. My name is not my life." The way he phrased it made he frown even more. Suspicious phrasing came hand in hand with the Fae, but even for them that was odd.

"And what does that entail?"

~I will not ask you where you came from.~

"I have no life back there. But now.." He stepped even closer, so close she could feel the new grass brushing her legs and promptly withering down to nothing. "Now you have my life. What do you want?"

~I will not ask, and neither should you.~

What did she want? With him?

"What do you want?" That made him toss his head back and laugh long and loud.

"What being are you, really? What do the Great Old Ones have to do with this realm? Who do I owe my life to? That's what I want."

Alana smiled at him and waved her hand. The scenery changed, and she allowed herself to change with it. It had been so long since she revealed this aspect of herself to anyone, but if she was to have the life of a Fae in her care, she would allow him to see who he was giving his life to. So she grew and expanded and the backyard became stone ruins that could actually hold her true form and he grew smaller and smaller. Eventually the changes stopped, and she knelt down to observe him.

~Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips.~

"Iliot, as worshipped by the Zothiqueans and those in the kingdom of Yoros," she said smoothly. He looked at her in surprise and awe. "That is who you owe your life to. But if you would prefer not to invoke our name in our tongue, Alana will do. And I am the only one of us who walks among the mortals. Observing them. Acting like them. To see how the lesser beings live out their short lives before the inevitable." She changed the scenery and her body again, and they stood back in her garden, he red hair messy and her clothes in tatters. "Satisfied with your life debt?"

He nodded, taking her arm and kissing the inside of her wrist. She felt her inner thoughts go to him:

GOOD BOY

He laughed at that. She kissed his knuckles.

YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED IN ME

"We'll see about that."

~We should just kiss like real people do.~


	4. James

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally some actual kissing goes down and we finally get a name for our mysterious stranger

~I could not ask you where you came from.~

The next day, she came into his room to see him standing at the window, looking out. So he really was fully recovered. Good. She set two glasses of sweet mead down onto the dresser.

"I brought something to celebrate," she announced, motioning to the glasses. He turned and looked at her, whatever glamours he had been using almost fully gone. He took the mead and sipped at it.

"It's good. Not as good as fresh cream, but it is good." She shrugged.

"If you want cream, you will get it. But I also know about your kind's proclivity for alcohol, so I thought this would be better."

"You still want to know my name, don't you?" She nodded. "It is not mine to give. But you have one in your mind, I can feel it." She frowned at his statement.

"What do you mean?"

~I could not ask, and neither could you.~

He finished the mead and put the glass down. Then, he walked towards her again. "Even if you don't consciously name someone or something, you name everything. It's in the nature of conscious beings. From the moment you lay eyes on me, you named me." She met him in the middle of the room and stared at him. He shrunk his shoulders slightly, bringing his height down almost unintentionally. "Say it."

"I can't. I don't have it." He reached up and touched her lips again. She kissed them, feeling the magic flow into her mind and form the words:

SHOW ME WITH A KISS THEN

~Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips.~

She smirked and touched his face. Barely running her fingers over his smooth skin, but he still melted into her touch like the mortals of millennia ago melted at the mere sight of her. She pulled him close and kissed him. Let the name in her subconscious bubble up into her conscious and surface between their lips.

JAMES

"I like the sound of that," James murmured against her lips before kissing her again.

~We could just kiss like real people do.~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading my wried fic!


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